COUNTY NEWS: Mum’s thanks to hospital staff for saving premature baby’s life

Chris, Kirsty and baby Monty.

Published:17:44Wednesday 15 November 2017

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A new mum whose baby boy was born weighing just 1lb 9oz has spoken out in praise of the doctors, nurses and midwives who saved his life.

Kirsty Sinden, from Hastings, is using Premature Baby Awareness Day – on Friday, November 17 – to thank the staff at the Conquest Hospital who kept her son alive after he was born just 25 weeks into her pregnancy.

The 24-year-old said: “Early morning of October 7, 2017, I started to get some strong pains in my lower back. I didn’t think it was anything serious at first and tried to go back to sleep but at 5:30am I got very worried something was wrong as the pains were getting worse.

“My husband Chris rang the Conquest, who told us to come in. We got to the hospital around 6:00am were I was met by one of the midwives, she was very calm and helped to ease our panic. While she was doing a check on the baby’s heart rate, she felt that my tummy was tightening so she went to get a doctor to do a test to see if I was going into early labour. The doctor was lovely – he explained how he was going to test this by taking a few swabs. However once the examination had started it was over as he could see that my cervix was already dilated.

“I was then taken to a delivery room where a new midwife took over. We had another doctor come in and do a scan – that’s when we found out he was going to be breach, so he got another one of his consultants to come in to check me over.

“The consultant came in but by this point I was fully dilated. He told me that the best option was for me to have a c-section – as he was breach, a normal birth would be even more risky to my baby’s life.

“So that was it. As soon as we agreed I was wheeled down to theatre and at 9:59am my son Monty was born weighing 870 grams. Monty was stable and was taken over to Brighton’s NICU. I could not go until the following day when I was more stable. The nurses were so understanding and caring – it was hard being miles away from your newborn baby not being able to hold or touch him. I remember not being able to sleep, when one of the nurses came in and I started to cry as I could hear another baby crying on the ward. She sat with me and spoke to me for a while, she gave me something to help me sleep.

“Without the doctors, nurses and midwives at the conquest, Monty would not have survived. It was bad enough that he was only 25 weeks and after the surgery, we found out that he would have never been born naturally as his legs were all tangled up.

“They made the right decisions all the way through, and they were kind and understanding at a time of uncertainty. We are currently still at Brighton hospital where Monty has a long way to go, but without the Conquest he would not be here today.”